Syracuse area put under winter storm warning

View full sizeJim Commentucci / The Post-StandardA car sliding in the snow took a four-foot bite out of a telephone pole Friday in the 900 block of Bellevue Avenue. The driver of the white Chevrolet sedan was uninjured in the 3:10 p.m. crash in front of 924 Bellevue Ave., police on the scene said. The car slid onto the side of the road, struck the pole, sheering it off at the bottom and about four feet up, leaving the pole being supported only by the wires. The 900 block of Bellevue Avenue was shut down to traffic while National Grid crews could fix the pole.

Syracuse, NY – Onondaga, Madison and Oneida counties have been issued a winter weather warning as more snow, gusty winds and lower temperatures take aim at the region.

Total snowfall from the storm now is expected to reach 6 to 12 inches by midnight, the National Weather Service said in a bulletin issued at 3:18 p.m. West winds are expected to blow at 15 mph to 25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph as the thermometer reaches down for the teens.

The warning expires at 7 a.m. The weather service said travel should be hazardous as heavy, blowing snow reduces visibility and makes roads icy.

The warning capped a day during which forecasters periodically upped their snow predictions as a low pressure system and cold front marched through Central New York from the Ohio Valley. Rained turned to snow before daybreak, complicating travel from rush hour on and forcing most schools to close.

A winter storm warning issued earlier for Oswego, Jefferson and Lewis counties remains in effect until 4 a.m., but the weather service increased storm totals project for those counties to 8 to 14 inches with west winds gusting up to 40 mph.

The low that brought the storm was over Maine by 3:35 p.m., helping to pump cold air into the Syracuse area, said Theodore Champney, a meteorologist at the weather service’s Binghamton office.

That air is starting to crank up lake effect snow bands off Lake Ontario, a process expected to continue as a secondary cold front over western New York changes the wind direction from the southwest to the northwest, he said. Lake effect bands should drift south from Watertown and Pulaski toward Syracuse.

High pressure entering the region Saturday should drive off the snow, but cold temperatures are expected to linger, he said.